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Saina Nehwal Profile

Saina Nehwal is one of the best known Indian Badminton players, and arguably the most promising female Indian Badminton player at the moment. Apart from upsetting some of the top seeded players in World Badminton, Saina has to her credit the achievement of being the first Indian woman to have entered the Quart Final round of Badminton event at the Olympic Games.

Early Life & Introduction to Badminton
She was born on born on the 17th of March 1990 at Hisar, Haryana. Both her father, Dr. Harvir Singh and mother Usha Rani were former State Badminton Champions in Haryana, so she got the game of Badminton in her genes. Dr. Harvir Singh, a scientist at the Directorate of Oilseeds Research, Hyderabad encouraged her to pick up the game of Badminton, and took her to Nani Prasad, the Badminton Coach at the Lal Bahadur Stadium in Hyderabad in the year 1998. The 8 yrs old Saina followed a very tough training schedule right since the beginning, and would travel almost 50kms a day for the training. Further, Saina trained under S.M. Arif, a Dronacharya Award winning Badminton Coach, and now is receiving Coaching at the Pullela Gopichand’s Academy of Badminton at Hyderabad.

National Badminton
Nehwal became the National Junior Champion in the year 2004, and won the title again in the year 2005. She was a runner up in the National Senior Championship 2005, and won the title in the year 2006, repeating the victory in the year 2007 again. Apart from these, she has won the All India Jr. Ranking Tournaments of the year 2005 held at Chennai, Cochin, Bangalore and Pune. She further won the All India Senior Ranking Tournament 2005 held at Mumbai, and also emerged as the winner at the National Games held at Guwahati.

International Badminton
Saina made her International Debut in the year 2003 at the India Satellite tournament where she reached the top-16 round. The same year, she won the Junior Czech Open tournament. Further, she reached the Quarter Final at the Cheers Asian Satellite tournament 2004 held at Singapore. She got her first International success at the India Satellite tournament 2005 where she emerged as the winner of the tournament. After this, she also claimed the Bingo Bonanza Philippines Open title in the year 2006, and the India Satellite tournament 2006. She played at the All England Open 2007, and reached the Pre-Quarter Final round where she lost to World No. 3 player from China. She also reached the Quarter Final rounds at the Macau Open tournament 2007 and the Dutch Open tournament 2007.

In the year 2008, Saina won the Chinese Taipei Grand Prix Gold tournament, and reached the Semi Final round of the LI NING China Masters Super Series tournament also. The same year, she created a history of the sorts when she became the First Indian Woman ever to reach the Quarter Final round of the Badminton event at the Olympic Games. At the Beijing Olympic Games 2008, Saina faced the 4th Seeded player and the World No. 6 Wang Chen from Hong Kong in the Pre-Quarter-Final match. Although in the Quarter Final match, she lost to Maria Kristin Yulianti of Indonesia by 28-26, 14-21, 15-21.

Major Upsets
Throughout her Badminton career so far, Saina has been able to topple some of the top Badminton players of the world in her tournaments. These players include Huaiwen XU, Julia Xian Pei of Malaysia, and the World No. 6 Wang Chen of Hong Kong.

Vishwanathan Anand-Personal Profile

Nick Name: Vishy
Date of Birth (Birthday): December 11, 1969
Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius
Hair Color: Black
Birth Place: Chennai, India
Religion: Hindu
Marital Status: Married
Languages: Tamil, English, Hindi, German, Spanish and French.
Hobbies: Reading, Swimming and Listening to Music

Favourites
Favourite Actor(s): Kamal Hassan and Rajni Kant
Favourite Actress: Aishwarya Rai, Sharon Stone
Favorite Food: Sambar, Rasam and Thai Food

Family Background
Father's Name: Vishwanathan
Mother's Name: Susheela
Brother: Shivakumar
Sister: Anuradha
Wife's Name: Aruna

Chess Background
Early days: Started playing chess from the age of six. It was his mother who taught him how to play the game of chess.

Awards and Achievements:
The illustrious chess career of Vishwanathan Anand has got him many national and international awards. Popular awards amongst the many awards received by Vishwanathan Anand include the: Padma Shri, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan, Arjuna Award, Chess Oscar, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, Jameo de Oro (highest honour of Spain).

Sachin Tendulkar Profile

Full Name: Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar
Born: April 24, 1973, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Major teams: India, Mumbai, Yorkshire
Batting style: Right-hand bat
Bowling style: Slow medium pace and spin
Achievements:

* Most runs and most centuries in ODIs
* Highest number of Test centuries
* First cricketer to make 10,000 runs in ODIs
* Most runs in World Cup history
* Highest individual score by an Indian (186 not out)
* Most Man of the Man awards in ODIs
* Wisden Cricketer of the Year 1997
* Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award for 1997-98

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar, generally known as Sachin Tendulkar is an Indian Cricket player who is considered to be one of the all time greatest batsmen to have ever played the game of Cricket. The renowned Cricket magazine Wisden ranked Sachin Tendulkar the 2nd all time greatest Test Cricket batsman, only after Sir Donald Bradman at the 1st place in the year 2002. Also, the magazine ranked him the 2nd all time greatest ODI batsman after Viv Richards at the first spot.

Accolades
Shane Warne, the leg spinner from Australia had once remarked Sachin Tendulkar as the greatest player he has played with, and Tendulkar, also known as the Little Master has also to his credit the honor of being the only player of the current generation who was included by Sir Donald Bradman in his dream team named Bradman’s Eleven.

Sachin Tendulkar is the batsman to have scored the biggest number of runs both in Test Cricket and ODI Cricket the world over, and has also to his credit the biggest number of centuries in both the forms of the game. He has scored over 80 centuries in the game of Cricket till now, and is the first batsman ever to score more than 50 centuries.

He is the first Cricket player who has scored over 10,000 runs in the One Day International (ODI) Cricket. Sachin has been conferred upon the Padma Vibhushan award and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award for his services to the nation as a sportsperson.

Early Life
Sachin Tendulkar was born on 24th of April, 1973 in Mumbai to a Marathi Novelist, Ramesh Tendulkar. Sachin got inspired to play cricket from his elder brother Ajit, and started playing the game at an early age in his school, Sharadashram Vidya Mandir. Under the guidance of his coach, Ramakant Achrekar, he learnt the basics of the game and showed his prowess along with his school mate and another future batsman of the Indian team, Vinod Kambli.

Test and ODI Debut
Sachin Tendulkar made his Test Cricket debut with a Test match played against Pakistan in Karachi in the year 1989, in which he scored 15 runs before being bowled out by Waqar Younis, a yet another Cricketer who debuted with this match. He began his ODI Cricket career in a match against Pakistan played on 18th of December 1989 at Gujranwala, Pakistan. He could, though, not make a single run in this match and just after facing 2 balls was caught by Wasim Akram on a Waqar Younis ball.

Remarkable Achievements
Tendulkar has shown some of his best batting performances against the Cricket team of Australia, one of the strongest teams during his period. As a matter of fact, the legendry Sir Donald Bradman had at one time reportedly told her wife that the playing style of Sachin reminded him of his own game in his youth.

Sachin has always created new records and destroyed innumerable of them that had been already established. At the age of 17 years he scored his first Test century, and by the age of 25 he had scored 16 of them. At the moment he is the Cricketer with largest number of Test and ODI centuries to his credit, and outclassed Brian Lara as the biggest Test scorer in the year 2008.

Captaincy
Twice in his Cricket career, Sachin had been nominated the Captain of the Indian Cricket team, but none of them proved to be much successful. Also, the pressure of Captaincy took a toll upon his performance as a batsman.

Overall Performance
In his overall Test Career till April 2009, Sachin Tendulkar has played 159 Test matches and has scored 12773 runs in them, including 42 centuries and 53 half-centuries, with an average of 54.58 runs and a highest score of 248 Not Out. In these matches, he also grabbed 44 wickets giving away 2272 runs at an average of 51.63 runs.

In his One Day International (ODI) Cricket career, however, Sachin has played 425 matches till April 2009, and scored 16684 runs including 43 centuries and 91 half-centuries, with an average of 44.37 runs and a highest score of 186 Not Out.

Sourav Ganguly Profile

Full name Sourav Chandidas Ganguly

Born July 8, 1972, Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bengal

Current age 37 years 4 days

Major teams India, Asia XI, Bengal, East Zone, Glamorgan, India Under-19s, Kolkata Knight Riders, Lancashire, Northamptonshire

Batting style Left-hand bat

Bowling style Right-arm medium

Height 5 ft 11 in

Early Days
Ganguly started playing Cricket at a very early age, as he got inspired by his elder bother Snehashish who played Cricket for Bengal. Interestingly, Sourav started playing with his left hand so that he could use his brother’s Cricket gear who himself was a left handed batsman. In his school days, Ganguly was the captain of St. Xavier’s School.

Beginning of the Cricket Career
Sourav Ganguly showed a good performance in the Ranji Trophy season of the year 1990-91. In the year 1992 he started his One Day International (ODI) Cricket career with a match against West Indies, in which he grabbed just 3 runs.

Again in the domestic Cricket he performed quite nicely during the years 1993-95. He scored 171 runs in an innings during the Duleep Trophy tournament of 1995-96 and was included in the national team for the England tour of the year 1996.

Test Debut
Sourav Ganguly made his Test Cricket debut at Lord’s Cricket Ground, in which he scored a century with 131 runs. This has been the highest score a batsman has achieved at Lord’s in his debut Test match.

Throughout his Test Cricket career, Ganguly played 113 Test Matches and scored a total of 7212 runs, including 16 centuries and 35 half-centuries. He scored 900 fours and 57 sixes as a Test Cricket batsman. His highest score in Test Cricket was 239 runs, and the overall Batting Average was 42.17 runs.

In the One Day International (ODI) Cricket, Ganguly played 311 matches and made a total score of 11363 runs comprising of 22 centuries and 72 half-centuries. The record included 1122 fours and 190 sixes, and the overall Batting Average was 41.02 runs.

Successful Captaincy
Sourav Ganguly is said to be one of India’s all time greatest Test Cricket Captains. After the match fixing scandal of the year 2000, He was declared Captain of the team. Under his Captaincy the Indian Cricket team reached the finals of the World Cup Cricket 2003, where Australia beat India to win the championship. During the year 2000-2005, he led the Indian Test Cricket team to 49 matches, out of which 21 were won by the team. He also led the Indian team to 146 One Day International (ODI) Cricket matches, out of which 76 were won by the team. In the year 2004, Ganguly was conferred upon with the Padma Shri award.

The Comeback
Ganguly made a comeback to the Indian Cricket team in a tour match against Rest of South Africa, in which he scored 83 runs leading India to victory. In his first Test Cricket innings after the comeback, he grabbed 51 runs in a Test match against South Africa. He also came back to the Indian ODI team in the year 2007, and in his first ODI innings after the comeback scored 98 runs in a match against West Indies.

Ganguly’s score of 66 runs was the highest in the first round match of the Indian team against the Bangladesh team in World Cup 2007, although the Indian team lost the match by 5 wickets.

He was named the Captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the IPL Twenty-20 Cricket tournament 2008. In a match played between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals during the tournament, Ganguly scored 51 runs off just 39 balls, which was his highest Twenty-20 Cricket score.

Last Moments
Ganguly played his last Test Cricket match against Australia in the year 2008, and scored 85 runs. He played his last ODI Cricket match against Pakistan on 15th of November 2007, in which he scored 5 runs.